


Treasures of Erdrea

by jazzfrog



Category: Dragon Quest Series, Dragon Quest XI
Genre: 10 years after yggdrasil, Canon Compliant, Hero | Luminary is Named Eleven | El (Dragon Quest XI), M/M, el is mute !, erik and el are married and go treasure hunting, is there even a demand for this kind of content LMAO, or at least i tried LMAO, post-game adventure thing, they live in my head rent free, veronica will probably say fuck, we’ll add more as we go !!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfrog/pseuds/jazzfrog
Summary: On their quest to see the world (and all it’s hidden treasure) and retire rich men, the Luminary and Erik stumble upon a weird, ancient treasure map, a bratty thief, and what’s kind of starting to sound a lot like a cult.There might not be many monsters anymore, but it’s not monsters they ought to be worried about.
Relationships: Camus | Erik/Hero | Luminary (Dragon Quest XI)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	1. side-questers

  
  
It never seems to matter how fast he runs. He knows what’s going to happen. He always does. As fast as his feet can carry him, he cuts through the brambles and vines of the First Forest. And his heart aches with every dice through every branch, vine, and thorn - this is a sacred place. But he does not have time, and the roots and thorns yank at his legs and pull him back; block his path.

And for the first time in a long time, Eleven is alone. He can see the World Tree above, leaves shining against the starry night.

It’s times like these he wishes he could scream their names.

And then it’s like the sky itself splits with Yggdrasil’s heart. The leaves burned up and scattered to the wind. The trunk splintering in two.

_If Yggdrasil falls, the world will-_

**L o a d i n g …**

Eleven shot up in a cold sweat.

Their campfire had burned out, leaving just the embers crackling and glowing in the rocks. The celestrian statue watched over them, dutiful as always, little candles still burning. Even though monsters were far and few between those days, they still made a habit of setting up camp nearby if they found one. He’d have to remember to leave another candle when they left tomorrow.

  
Or, in a few hours. The sky was going purple over the horizon. Were it not for the stars, Eleven would’ve thought he’d woken up, and the past ten years had been a dream. That Yggdrasil had fallen, and that when he looked around, he would be alone.

“Hey.”

But he wasn’t alone. 

“There’s the sword.” Sprawled out beside him, Erik took one hand from behind his head, and pointed up a constellation in the sky. The stars at what was supposed to be the hilt and the point of the blade shone brightest. “The northmost points to the World Tree, no matter what time of night it is.”

 _Did we ever check if that was true?_ Eleven signed, trying not to let his hands tremble.

“Don’t think so.” His hair had darkened a bit over the years, a combed-back mess that was just long enough that when El was really bored enough, he might just let him leave tiny braids in it. Erik still wore the cloak he’d made him. Said it made him feel like a swindler king, which was ‘real befitting of the Prince’s husband, don’tcha think?’ It’d been patched up so many times over the years that it was practically embroidered. Right then, it functioned as a blanket for the both of them. “Might be a nice break from treasure hunting, if you’re up for it.”

Eleven thought about it, then shook his head.

 _No_ , he said, _We’re expected back in Dundrasil._

“Alright then,” Erik laughed slightly, “No veering off. I get it. I suppose it’ll be nice to be in one place for a while.” 

Even saying Dundrasil - the place, the city, the kingdom, not the ruins where he’d first met his grandfather again after eighteen, clueless years - was still strange to him. When Rab set off to do something, by Yggdrasil did he do it. It’d been years since they’d begun rebuilding it, and still every time they came back, Eleven was surprised not to be greeted by ruins. And to think it had once been torn to the ground in a single night-

When he didn’t respond, Erik sat up, and locked his fingers in El’s. He wore half the spoils of their treasure hunts on his hands and his wrists: rings that protected against curses and paralysis, a bracer that was rumoured to make magic stronger. 

“You saved the world.” The tired lines under his eyes had only gotten more pronounced, despite everything, and there was a telltale scar straight across the arch of his cheekbone that had just never gone away no matter how many midheal spells they tried. Every time someone asked what had happened, he gave them a different story. The man was almost unrecognisable from the boy he’d met in the dungeons of Heliodor, and yet he was still entirely, unapologetically Erik. “Erdrea’s at peace. ‘Bout time you were too.”

With Erik’s urging, he settled back down, head on his chest, and tried to get a few more hours of sleep in whilst he could. Running his fingers through El’s long, shiny hair, he watched the horizon, on guard for any sign of night terrors.

**Then, morning comes …**

Eleven had never realised just how big the world really was until after he and his companions had saved it. They had spent two long years travelling far and wide searching for Mordegon, but there was still so many towns, villages, and cities they had yet to see.

Up in the mountains, about ten days travel north from the Academy, they’d heard from a weirdly familiar-looking travelling salesman about the village of Landfell. 

This was their last escapade before they planned to head back to Dundrasil, and El was almost entirely convinced they were lost, or that it didn’t exist anymore. That was until they came to the top of a waterfall in the higher flats of the region.

“I’ll bet we could survive that,” Erik said.

El smirked.

_Ten gold says we can’t._

And Erik, being Erik, stuck one foot over the edge of the cliff with a gormless grin, before he looked down, and his face fell in an instant. And so, almost, did he. Whatever Erik had seen when he looked down had surprised him out of any and all balance, and for the third time had to save him from plummeting to certain death. Which wasn’t a lot of times, but the fact that it had happened more than once was deeply concerning to everyone around them. Moreso the fact that it didn’t even include the times they had leapt from very high points they, by all accounts, shouldn’t have survived. 

It was no wonder they couldn’t find Landfell. What they had thought was a mountain face was instead a sheer drop into a perfectly circular canyon. The village was nestled perfectly out of sight from anywhere else below it in Erdrea, surrounded by veins of crystal-blue rivers that forked off the waterfall, and disappeared into the caves. Just as Hendrik had never known Cobblestone was tucked away in the Heliodor region, it was no wonder Landfell suffered the same fate.

  
“Well?” Erik said, fastening a grappling hook around the trunk of a tree, throwing all his body weight against it, before he threw the rope over the edge of the waterfall, and held out his hand. “What’re we waiting for?”

And once again, they jumped off a cliff.

With the right equipment this time.

**L o a d i n g …**

If there was one thing they could tell, the people of Landfell didn’t take kindly to outsiders. As Eleven and Erik trudged the cobbled paths into the village, goatherds, farmers, and children playing on the rocks all stopped and stared. Their eyes didn’t leave them until they passed.

Which wouldn’t be so weird, if Eleven wasn’t the Luminary, literal saviour of the world. There was scarcely a place in Erdrea where people didn’t recognise some part of him; whether that was his birthmark, the seal of Dundrasil on his tunic, a piece of a story they told, or (weirdly frequently) his hair. The people here either didn’t know, or didn’t care.

And it was kind of brilliant.

Erik didn’t seem to agree. He kept walking with his hands on the hilts of his daggers, hanging from his waist. El kept moving his hands back to his side with an affirming shake of his head - no one was going to come out with ‘darkspawn’ ever again; there was no need to make anyone even think they meant harm.

Past thick orchards of fygg trees and grazing goats, the paths were paved with the precision of cities, and as they got further into the village there were old remnants of what looked like mosaic. Even the walls of some buildings were adorned with careful, colourful geometric patterns. It was only when they came to the plaza that anyone approached them.

“You are not of this place,” an old woman said, curls of greying hair poking out from underneath a red headscarf. She wore long, plain, black robes, and pointed the strange, eyeball handle of her cane at them. “Who are you? Why have you come here?”

El introduced himself. Erik translated.

 _I’m the Luminary, Prince El of Dundrasil_ , he signed, _this is Prince Erik-_

“-prince Erik- Ooh!” Erik interrupted him, “Prince, am I!”

_Erik, we’ve been married for ten years._

“Luminary,” the old woman murmured.

“Yeah, you know,” Erik said, “the Luminary. Reincarnated, saved the world from darkness and restored peace to all Erdrea.”

  
“Yes, yes that old chestnut-” the woman said in a manner that made it obvious she wasn’t listening to him. “Ah. You speak with your hands, Luminary.”

“Could you, um-”

  
Eleven was pretty sure the handle of that woman’s cane blinked at him.

“-get that freaky thing out of our faces?”

“What brings you here?”

The woman leered closer, and it was only then that El realised she was blind. 

“We heard there’s a treasure from the Age of Heroes that was lost around here centuries ago,” Erik said, “Thought it might be worth looking into. Have you heard anything about the Torch of Cartogra?”

“Treasure!” She put her cane to the ground, and clasped her hand around the eye, where the lids closed beneath her fingers. “Princes of Dundrasil, and you come looking for treasure with weapons at your hips?”

She was a mage.

“Nah,” Erik said, “he’s the Prince; I’m a no-good-troublemakin’ pirate. Who are you?”

El looked around. Men, women, and children watched them with a careful, unassuming eye as they went about their daily business. Slowly. He watched a vendor literally sell a woman a bag of apples in slow motion, both their eyes pinned on him.

“I am Oneida Han,” the woman said, “and for your information, I’m the Wisewoman of Landfell.”

There was a large pool in the centre of the wonky plaza where bright, shimmering red koi swam amongst pennies, rings, and little padlocks at the bottom. An oddly-shaped fountain jutted up in the middle, covered in similar colourful mosaic as the paths and walls. It looked more like giant bits of walls stacked into a pyramid than anything else.

  
“Look,” he heard Erik sigh, “I’m sorry. We don’t mean you or your village any harm. If we’re not welcome here, we’ll happily be on our way.” 

Underneath the water that flooded over it, El could see that the patterning formed a sort of tapestry. There was the vague form of a human, offering up a- stick? to what looked like it could be some kind of dragon, or night-creature that circled the moon, or the sun, or whatever it was. It was oddly familiar in style, just like the-

“Unless there’s anywhere we could take room and board for the night. In which case, we’d be very gratefuuU-”

El grabbed Erik’s arm, and pulled him around, pointing to the markings on the fountain. He squinted for a moment, not quite understanding what El wanted him to look at.

“Get away from there!” Oneida scolded.

“That could be it,” Erik said, “A torch _is_ just a fancy word for a stick.”

 _The art_ , _Erik_ , El said.

“Yeah, it’s really nice. Wait-” he got it. “It looks like-”

“That pool is not to be touched by outsiders!”

“The Watchers?”

When they turned around, Oneida was right behind them, her pallid, blank eyes wide, her staff raised overhead. She’d been about to wallop them over their heads with it, when Erik said what El had been thinking. 

Oneida lowered her staff. “You know of the Watchers.”

El and Erik looked at each-other.

 _I think_ \- El said, and as per usual, Erik translated - _I know why it’s called Landfell._


	2. land fell (out of the sky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> erik and el share one braincell and it’s busy relentlessly bullying hendrik

It wasn’t a valley. It was a crater.

In a complete 180, the wisewoman sage Oneida Han invited the Prince of Dundrasil and his intolerable husband into her cottage a little ways up the side of the crater-valley. 

The place was lined wall to wall with dried herbs, pressed mountain flowers, and animal hides. El even recognised some gnawchild tendrils, sabercat fangs, and chimera wings amongst her cabinets of- stuff. Whoever Oneida was, she certainly had travelled further than the Champs Sauvage, and had survived her fair share of monster encounters back in the day.

“A long time ago, an island fell from the sky,” she said, pouring two bowls full of stew that she’d cooked in a large cauldron over the fire. “The story goes that Fay Thao, a travelling sorceress, found this crater high in the mountains, where weird little- blob men, I guess, entrusted her with a torch to guard and protect - that would be your Torch of Cartogra.”

“The Watchers told us all about the Sword of Light and other relics,” Erik said, “but they never made any mention of any torch.”

“Well maybe because it wasn’t  _ for _ you, busy galavanting about with magic forges and swords and big, baby-looking bug giants.”

Erik snorted with laughter. He’d decided he quite liked this old witch after all, freaky blinking staff and all. Though they were both a little concerned as to what the stew actually contained. At least it tasted good.

“And also, the Watchers didn’t make it,” Oneida said, “From what I read, I’m not convinced they knew what it was in the first place. Only that they had it, and fancied it was a piece of history, so therefore worth looking after.”

_ They must’ve had some idea, _ El signed,  _ they made a mural about it. _

“The mural wasn’t made by them,” Oneida said, “Fay Thao did. It’s said she was influenced by the ruins she built this village on, after being struck by a strange dream.” 

“I can’t wait to rub this all in Rab’s face,” Erik replied, “This torch. I read it’s supposed to be engraved with a map of some kind.”

“Well, don’t believe everything you read. Who knows. I sure bloody well don’t. But still, I’m curious as to what interest the Prince of Dundrasil and his consort have in treasure-hunting.”

“It’s how we met,” Erik said.

_He tried to steal from the royal family of Heliodor,_ El said.

“Ah-ah. Tried, no, I  _ successfully _ stole the red orb of Heliodor.”

_ Only with my help. After being thrown in jail. _

“Yes, only with your help. After being thrown in jail. By Sir Hendrik. Who was also at our wedding. But the point is-”

“Yggdrasil,” Oneida cursed, “I’ve heard stories of the Luminary, but very few of them involved so much breaking, entering, and looting.”

El couldn’t help but laugh then. The amount of places they revisited once Hendrik had rejoined their party, only for horror to set in on his face as almost every time, Erik made a passing remark about how it “brought back memories of when we broke into this place.” He even started doing it deliberately just to mess with the poor guy, whilst Jade, Sylvando, Veronica, and Rab all backed him up on ridiculously convoluted lies about stuff they hadn’t stolen. And, like a doting father, Hendrik would just sigh, and say something like “well, I am glad to see that you’ve since been freed from doing such things out of necessity.”

“I must apologise for our aloofness,” Oneida said, “It is so rare for us to get travellers, much less travellers that intended to come here. We’ve had many people in our past try to steal the torch, or take advantage of our water and the good fortune they’re believed to bring.”

“Well that explains the pennies.”

There was a long pause, filled only with the crackling of the fireplace, when Oneida continued.

“There’s a cave network that runs deep behind the waterfall,” she said lowly, “but it has been blocked off for decades. I am a mage more versed in potions and healing that anything else, and haven’t been able to break through myself. But perhaps the Luminary-”

El grinned at Erik, then turned back to Oneida.

_ I think we can help you with that, _ he said,  _ but why trust us, if no one else before? _

“If I can’t trust Yggdrasil’s chosen to respect our wishes, then I have become a bitter old woman indeed. If the Torch of Cartoga is there somewhere, I only ask that you leave it us, as the people who were trusted to protect it. If the story is true that it does show a map of some kind, I’ll transcribe it for you as thanks. Perhaps you and your scholars will be able to find something I would otherwise miss.”

“Move a boulder, get a treasure map?” Erik beamed, “Piece of cake.”

“What say you, Luminary? Will you help?”

_ Yes. _

**L o a d i n g …**

After marking Landfell on their own map of Erdrea, Eleven and Erik settled down for the night in Oneida’s cottage. Eleven looked proudly at their chart, and the smattering of crosses that covered the mountains, islands, and valleys; the new names of villages they’d added in between places like Dundrasil, Heliodor, Snifelheim, and Octagonia. 

Dundrasil. It wasn’t that he didn’t look forward to going home - El missed his grandfather, his mother; he missed seeing Jade and Hendrik on their ‘diplomatic visits’ that ‘never’ turned into ‘reckless sparring matches.’ Sometimes Sylvando would roll through the city with his parade, just for old time’s sake, and Serena and Veronica would visit for every festival that was held. 

But when you’ve travelled the world, it’s so hard to sit in one place, knowing that so much else is out there. And out there was adventure, in places familiar and new, with the man he loved.

Still, Rab, as lively as he was, was getting old. He hadn’t been too keen on taking up the title of King again, but when El explained to him that he needed to see the world without doom and prophetic expectations looming over him, he understood.

And of course then there was the issue of heirs, which was a whole other issue.

When Hendrik had first boarded the Stallion and met the amnesiac Erik, Sylvando had given him a frankly torturously long explanation of their journey, their friends, their interpersonal relationships. He had come up to El later above deck to express his condolences, and offer his sympathies for how difficult it must be to see someone he cares so much about barely remember his name.

_ This bloodline dies with me, Hendrik _ , he’d signed. And Hendrik had dutifully learned just enough sign language at that point to understand.

The joke had landed flat, he’d thought. Hendrik just stared at him, not sure if it was a joke at all. And then he heard Sylv absolutely howl with laughter from the wheel.

“Are you gonna stare at that paper all night?”

**Then, morning came …**

The cavern behind the waterfall they had (almost) fallen off the day before was long, dark, and wet with mildew and weeds. Even El’s fire spells had a hard time lighting their lanterns after they’d come through the pelt of the waterfall.

Oneida felt along the walls, before she stopped suddenly, patting what looked like a landslide at the end of the tunnel. “This is it.”

“Alright,” Erik said, planting his feet shoulder-width apart, “You might wanna step back.”

Oneida stepped back with the Luminary, her eyeball staff blinking and squinting in the dim light. “I thought you were going to do it.”

_ Oh, no, not a chance _ , El signed, trying to make sure the weird eye handle thing saw his hands.

Erik splayed his hands toward the ground, and the familiar orange sigil formed beneath the rubble. In one swift motion, stone shifted and shot up from the ground, splitting the blockade, and moving it apart. When the sigil faded, there was just enough room for them to climb through.

“Now  _ that _ -!” Oneida cackled. “Is a damn spell!”

**L o a d i n g …**

Without many monsters roaming around anymore, there was little for them to worry about besides getting lost. This wasn’t much concern to Oneida - being blind, she couldn’t see where they were going anyway, so she took great pleasure in reminding El and Erik her life was in their hands.

“What, the weird staff is just decor?” Erik remarked.

“No,” Oneida replied, “it’s just short-sighted. Don’t be rude.”

“Goddess,” Erik huffed, “You and Ronnie could be related.” 

There were some bats and slimes that generally ignored them unless they veered too close. Nothing they couldn’t take care of with one swing of a sword or a knife. As they navigated the winding chambers, El left smudges of paint on every tunnel they took. Should’ve done this in the Mural and the Fortress.

This might take a while.

**L o a d i n g …**

After what seemed like days and days of dead-ends, walking in circles, and falling down holes, they finally stumbled upon a set of tall, stone doors. Their lanterns had shattered on their last tumble, but the blue glow of the runes that magically sealed the crypt doors led them right to it.

El held up his hand, and tried to dispel the seal. It took a while, but eventually the mark on his hand began to glow. He could only explain it as Fay Thao’s magic recognising that he meant no ill will, nor did he intend to take whatever laid inside. 

Granted, it took another hour for Erik and El just to push the doors open, because Oneida wouldn’t let them ridgeraiser their problems away. 

Inside, by some miracle, was a pedestal. And atop it, held aloft in a pair of delicately carved stone hands, was the mahogany Torch of Cartoga.

“That’s it?” Erik was unimpressed.

“That’s it,” Oneida beamed, dumping all her cartography equipment on the floor with a flourish. El hoped her staff didn’t have any trouble reading.

_ That was almost too easy _ , El said.

Erik frowned, watching carefully as the witch made her way to the pedestal. “Way too easy.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> so, like. 
> 
> This happened
> 
> im just out here tryna have some Good Whimsical Fun !!!!! Hope u enjoy :’)


End file.
